In this special episode of Canary in a Cornfield, I take a pause from our normal programming to reflect on two years of food systems, agriculture, and public health work at the Harkin Institute. I mentino some formative academic and professional stops in the U.S., Canada, and the UK, including work connected to Oxford’s Future of Food and LEAP programs, and my discovery that global research highlighted Iowa’s outsized role in environmental and diet-related harms. I also discuss how a 2024 conference tied to Industrial Farm Animal Production led to collaboration with the Iowa Environmental Council and Iowa philanthropists to fund the Environmental Risk Factors in Cancer in Iowa project, generating media coverage, statewide listening sessions, and shifting political debate around water quality, nitrates, and cancer.

Links from the Episode:

Cancer and Environmental Risk Factors in Iowa Report

Iowa’s Water Crisis - Nothing Will Change if Nothing Changes report from John Norris and others

Walter Willett Interview on the EAT Lancet Report

Bob Martin Interview on the Pew Commission Report

Interim Findings Report funded by the General Assembly